Zélie Pollon

News Director

Zélie Pollon is an award-winning independent journalist who has focused much of her work on social and humanitarian issues around conflict and reconstruction. For over a decade, Pollon has reported on issues of international significance, publishing hundreds of articles for Reuters, The Dallas Morning News, People Magazine and other major publications. She has studied, worked, and served on boards across the globe, from Iraq to Sri Lanka. Pollon’s professional experiences are wide ranging, and include serving as Managing Editor for Curve Magazine; working as a trainer for journalists in Africa to promote democracy and free speech; and translating lectures by the Dalai Lama from French recordings into English. Her recent research looked at oral history and the role it plays in Transitional Justice and post conflict rebuilding -- and most importantly, post conflict healing -- in both Baghdad, Iraq, and more recently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Pollon has garnered international recognition for her work, including such esteemed awards as the Rotary World Peace Fellowship and honors from the National Press Foundation.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the detonation of the first atomic bomb, which took place 70 years ago this month. KSFR’s Zelie Pollon spoke with Rushmore Denooyer, director of a two-hour PBS special on the bomb airing tonight—about what drew him to his project, and what surprised him most as he learned about the early days of nuclear technology.

Starting a small business is a challenge pretty much anywhere and at any time. Managing that small business in Santa Fe, by many accounts, you can multiply those challenges. So when a business lasts five ten and then 20 years, it’s worth celebrating. Take Sarcon construction, run by Peter Brill, which just marked its 20th year.

Earlier this week the Bernalillo County Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve the first step for a Master plan for a controversial housing development called Santolina. Critics opposed to the plan say it will take more than its share of water and is unnecessary considering the lack of growth in the Albuqueque area. Douglas Meiklejohn of the Environmental Law Center spoke to us on wednesday about their pending lawsuit. Representatives of the plan also wanted their voices heard.

Last night in Bernalillo County, Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve a Master plan for a controversial housing development that planners say will accommodate more than 90,000 people in the coming decades. Critics are vowing legal challenges for what they call a plan that takes too much water for too few people. KSFR’s Zelie Pollon asked Environmental Law Center Director Douglas Meiklejohn to explain the plan and why he is representing the lawsuit against the development.

Construction on the Diverging Diamond Interchange begins in earnest this week. Be ready for some lane closures and delayed travel times. KSFR’s Zélie Pollon spoke with from one of the engineers on the project to find out what's in store.

On Wednesday The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unveiled a Clean Water rule to restore pollution protections for tens of millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of streams all across the United States. KSFR’s Zelie Pollon spoke with Kimberly Williams of Environment New Mexico a statewide environmental advocacy organization to find out more about the historic ruling.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for our US Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich. After sponsoring a bill to designate two additional wilderness areas in New Mexico they joined forces on a bill to create a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES). The bill would require utilities companies like our own Public Utilities of New Mexico, or PNM, to generate at least 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030. KSFR's Zelie Pollon spoke with Senator Heinrich about both the RES and the wilderness designation.

Lobbyists spent record amounts this year wooing politicians and trying to influence bills. In a recent report by New Mexico In Depth, Journalist Sandra Fish went through all the spending records from the Secretary of State’s office up until May 1st. She explained to KSFR what she found.